Tripartite Summit

The Prime Minister was waiting to receive his guests at Number 10, surprised that they were willing to meet so suddenly and on such short notice. Mr. Miliband knew what this was about and knew that while the Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, and Transport Secretary were in Davishire, he would take over much of the negotiating.

Peter Montfort and his aides strode through arrivals at Heathrow Airport and met with Mr. Miliband's aides. They greeted each other, and the Britons led them to the cars. They got in, and were whisked away to 10 Downing Street.

Steward Dante Maximilian landed unceremoniously at London City airport. Wishing for this meeting to be off the record, he had to take a different plane than usual. A British escort was waiting and he wasted no time in getting to Number 10 Downing Street. Very important business would be conducted tonight.

The Duxburian Steward arrived at Number 10 and was very quickly sent inside. The Prime Minister extended his hand for a quick handshake.

"Steward Maximillian, it is a great honour for you to be here in London. Thank you for coming. I'm not sure if you've met Mr. Montfort before from Angleter.

"What I've asked you all here for is to establish much greater alliance between our nations. The three of us have been essentially aligned for much of our existence and have shared similar views on the Union. There may even be separate deals on the table for our respective nations as well.

"What I propose is a more formal cooperation on our parts at various levels. If our three nations work together and present a strong front, we can work for the betterment of the European Union and strengthen our own positions."

Maximillian greeted his Angleteric and British counterparts, exchanging handshakes.

"Councillor Montfort, it is a pleasure to meet you."

"Thank you for arranging this meeting," he said to Prime Minister Miliband. "If it is alright, I would like to pitch quite a few proposals, so we'd better sit down, it's going to be a long night."

They sat down and received some light refreshments and fine wine from their British hosts.

The Steward resumed talking, "So, my country has had a long-standing alliance with the United Kingdom, and a working alliance with Angleter in Dromund Kaas. Since we have powerful militaries, healthy market economies, and like-minded foreign policy, I strongly support the British proposal to create a 3-way alliance between our countries."

He paused to gauge support for the idea.

"On the military front, this would create by far the strongest and most technologically advanced alliance in Europe. The Duxburian Union is very interested in sharing tech that amplifies our individual strengths and mitigates our weaknesses.

My country can offer several interesting items, such as our directed energy (laser) weapons program, which is already operational and ready to be installed on ships of all sizes. These 30 megawatt lasers are capable of taking out anything from a drone to a cruise missile with such selective accuracy that a missile launcher can be destroyed without harming the operator standing right next to it. We are testing 100 megawatt lasers, with a program goal over 1 gigawatt. More powerful lasers will be able to engage fighter aircraft and even enemy warships.

We also have supersonic rail guns undergoing sea trials. Current rail guns are capable of Mach 7 and 110 mile range, while the long range goal is Mach 35 and intercontinental range. The Duxburian ship of the future will be able to pierce armor 20 times thicker than anything afloat today, from the other side of the world, in minutes.

We can also trade the converted Ohio class SSGN with you. This is an SSBN designed to take conventional cruise missiles. Each Ohio can hold up to 154 missiles, enough to pound enemies into dust. As the class was originally intended to carry nuclear missiles, it is one of the stealthiest subs out there."

The Steward paused again to try more of that fantastic British wine. He noticed that champagne had been brought in and left unopened.

"On the economic front, I wish to sign trade deals with both of your countries, separate from the essentially defunct EEC. We don't even *need* to have *free* trade per se, I'm more concerned with ease of trade, with minimal restrictions, minimal red tape, and freedom of movement. Harmonizing our ban lists, restricted item lists, and allowances would make customs much more efficient.

"I cannot speak for Councillor Montfort, but I know that the United Kingdom would be willing to enter such a close relationship with the Duxburian Union and Angleter. We believe it is our responsibility to do so.

"We've long seen the Duxburian capabilities and our Government is thrilled that we will be able to trade even closer with the Union and Angleter. Continued economic growth for our nations is good for the European Union as a whole."

The Prime Minister found the pinot noir coming back. "Hello, old friend," he said to a glass as he picked one up off of the tray of a footman. It was one of those archaic luxuries that helped the Prime Minister focus on his job.

"While Britain does like to engage in free trade with its partners, we also agree that it does not have to be entirely free but a lot easier. The ease of trade is very important, and there are certain industries in each nation that we would probably prefer not to completely open."

"Terrific! In addition to 3-way free or fair trade, I also wish to negotiate bilateral deals for iron, uranium, and nickel. The Duxburian Union can offer copper, zinc, brass, galvanized steel, silicon, tungsten, or natural gas in return.

Additionally, I am very interested in establishing university cooperation, an Angleteric idea that never made it to European law, but should exist somewhere. Universities could share academic resources on an as-needed basis, partner in joint research ventures, and transfer/study abroad programs could be made for our students. Tuition, or the lack thereof, and admission, are more touchy subjects and best left up to the universities themselves.

The City of Anglebury on the Duxburian-Angleteric border is interested in building a high speed rail link across the border. The tracks would carry commuter rail, freight, and regional rail. This could facilitate commerce and tourism, while also enabling our citizens to work across the border seamlessly.

Also bilterally, we wish to increase our level of trust with Angleter, by completely demilitarizing and de-walling our land border. We do not expect you to match our extremely liberal drug laws, however, and we will continue to monitor and secure our side of the border."

"Certainly, we would be more than willing to enter into a tripartite alliance, which we'd consider a simple case of making official what is already the case de facto. On the economic front, Angleter would happily establish free movement of goods, capital, and services insofar as EEC restrictions allow, and naturally, we would be very interested in establishing university co-operation between our three nations as Steward Maximilian just outlined."

Montfort sipped his glass of wine

"With the Duxburian Union in particular, we would be particularly interested in a deal trading Angleteric uranium for Duxburian silicon, and the high speed rail connection is an excellent idea. We would envisage that such a connection would extend to either Balgad or Neomantua, from whence it would join the existing Angleteric high-speed network. On the issue of the border, we will be pleased to demilitarise and de-wall, but will, likewise, continue to maintain border stations staffed by the Border Agency. Moreover, I would suggest with respect to free movement of people that we establish between our countries visa-free travel, that is to say, one needs only a Duxburian or British passport to get into Angleter, and vice versa."

He'd been hesitant to present the proposals received from a certain someone in the Cyber Warfare Division. The information was terrifyingly disruptive.

Maximillian decided to tell his allies?they needed to be prepared for the new technology. He spoke up,

"There is one more thing I'd like to address. One of my colleagues, who shall go unnamed for now, wishes to propose specific technology cooperation projects with Angleter and the UK.

The first one is joint research into new cryptography schemes for all of our national security. He claims that his "D-Wav" project team has completed a?"

The Steward reached for his reading glasses, he wasn't good with technical details and wanted to make sure they were right?

"?a '2,048 qubit quantum computer, with 300,000x faster performance than the previous model. The new computer is faster than any existing classical supercomputer, and the next scale up will possess more computing power than there is energy in the universe.' He says that this could take place before the end of the year, and that 'almost all classical security schemes should be considered broken and abandoned immediately'.

"Now that is downright scary! I don't know much about this stuff, but it sounds like quantum computing has capabilities that I can't even conceive of, and it's progressing rapidly. It's probably something we should act on."

Maximillian paused to sip some more wine.

"But wait! There's more! He also has created some kind of "cryptographic currency" and two different types of networks that can propagate it. The crypto currency is generated when computing power is used to 'mine' it, all transactions are public yet anonymous, and it mostly regulates itself by design. He wants to know if Angleter and the UK would be interested in legalizing it (or rather, not criminalizing it).

The second network he's built with a British partner firm is especially interesting. It's called Ripple and is capable of trading anything of value in 2-5 seconds with virtually no cost per transaction. Like the crypto currency, it doesn't need a central authority, it manages itself. The network also uses some kind of advanced pathfinding algorithm, so you can send any kind of asset and receive a specified type of asset at the most optimal exchange rates. The buyer doesn't even need to have the payment type requested by the seller. He wants our banks to consider using Ripple in place of ACH, wire transfers, direct deposit, etc.

2-5 second transfer sounds good to me! Usually I have to wait 2-5 days for my kickbacks to clear checking!"

The Steward laughed innocently, as if he'd be dumb enough to take bribes with scary people like Devoy watching every click.

"This may be a touchy subject since I know many countries have border controls on the amount of money travelers can bring in or out. The Duxburian Union gave up years ago and with crypto currency and Ripple on the horizon, it appears that currency controls are totally useless now. A person could transfer K:10 million without a trace, while literally standing in the security line. Instead of trying to fight this new technology, I agree with the creator. It would make more sense to actually make it easier to send the money, with Ripple ATMs at borders and ports. If it's not illegal, then travelers have no reason to hide anything, and then Customs would be able to see how much they transferred in or out, while collecting transaction fees.

It would be extremely advantageous for our banks to share an integrated Ripple-powered network so our investors can move assets between our nations with almost no cost, in seconds, as the markets shift. That would be a compelling reason to invest in our countries and not in competing countries. Workers across borders in our countries could also be paid instantly in their home currency, no matter what their employer pays them with."

The Prime Minister waited for his Duxburian counterpart to be finished before he turned to him.

"I know that Ripple has been a very exciting thing with my colleague in Business and Innovation, and we have been looking into using it with our financial sector. We welcome this innovation, and look to harmonise it with our existing banks.

"The supercomputer idea is something we would love to collaborate on."

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Kendrelaatzenian Dominions of the Duxburian Union, and the Apostolic Kingdom of Angleter hereby agree to form a working partnership henceforth known as the Tripartite Alliance. The Tripartite Alliance is based upon the following agreements as discussed in London on the date of 31 May 2015:

1. The United Kingdom, Duxburian Union, and Angleter agree to a mutual defence agreement. This agreement allows for the parties aforementioned to cooperate on military technologies, enhanced cooperation on military, civilian, and foreign intelligence. Aid can be enacted when one member is attacked by another state or supranational organisation.

2. The Tripartite Alliance encourages fair trading principles as well as, in some circumstances, free trade. This includes natural resources, manufactured goods.
a. Any party may object to the opening of trade on certain industries, goods, resources, agricultural products, manufactured products and all other aspects of trade.

3. The free movement of goods, capital, and persons as mandated by the extant European Economic Community (EEC) agreement.
a. The movement of persons will not require visas, but will still require proper identification as mandated by each nation.

4. The enhanced cooperation between universities and educational institutions in the United Kingdom, Duxburian Union, and Angleter. This includes but is not limited to a foreign exchange programme.
a. All members must observe rules regarding tuition fees, miscellaneous associated fees, and all other costs of education.

5. The land border between the Duxburian Union and Angleter will be demilitarised. The timetable of this demilitarisation will be set by the Duxburian Union and Angleter.

6. Angleter and the Duxburian Union will engage in the construction of a high-speed rail connection, meeting at the town of Anglebury. The extension of the rail connection will be up to each nation.

7. Joint research into new cryptography methods, building a next generation form of internet and network security.

8. Harmonisation of Duxburian, British, and Angleteric banking, financial, and customs systems into the Ripple Network system of transactions.